The
Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the
Quake of '89 and the
World Series Earthquake, was a major
earthquakeAn earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
that struck the
San Francisco Bay AreaThe San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
of
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time. Caused by a slip along the
San Andreas FaultThe San Andreas Fault is a continental strike-slip fault that runs a length of roughly through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip...
, the quake lasted 10–15 seconds and measured 6.9 on the
moment magnitude scaleThe moment magnitude scale is used by seismologists to measure the size of earthquakes in terms of the energy released. The magnitude is based on the seismic moment of the earthquake, which is equal to the rigidity of the Earth multiplied by the average amount of slip on the fault and the size of...
(surface-wave magnitude 7.1) or 6.9 on the
open-ended Richter ScaleThe expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake....
. The quake killed 63 people throughout northern California, injured 3,757 and left some 3,000-12,000 people homeless.
The earthquake occurred during the warm-up practice for the third game of the
1989 World Series†: Game 3 was originally slated for October 17 at 5:35 pm; however, it was postponed when an earthquake occurred at 5:04 pm.-Game 1:Saturday, October 14, 1989 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California...
, featuring both of the Bay Area's
Major League BaseballMajor League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
teams, the
Oakland AthleticsThe Oakland Athletics season saw the A's finish in first place in the American League West division, with a record of 99 wins and 63 losses, seven games in front of the Kansas City Royals. It was their second consecutive AL West title, as well as the second straight year in which they finished...
and the
San Francisco GiantsThe 1989 San Francisco Giants season saw the Giants finish in first place in the National League West with a record of 92 wins and 70 losses. It was their second division title in three years. The Giants defeated the Chicago Cubs in five games in the National League Championship Series...
. Because of game-related sports coverage, this was the first major earthquake in the United States of America to have its initial jolt broadcast live on television.
Epicenter
The
epicenterThe epicenter or epicentre is the point on the Earth's surface that is directly above the hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or underground explosion originates...
of the quake was in the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in
Santa Cruz CountySanta Cruz County is a county located on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California, on the California Central Coast. The county forms the northern coast of the Monterey Bay. . As of the 2010 U.S. Census, its population was 262,382. The county seat is Santa Cruz...
, an unpopulated area in the
Santa Cruz MountainsThe Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central California, United States. They form a ridge along the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco, separating the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley, and continuing south,...
(geographical coordinates 37.040°N 121.877°W), approximately 2 – north of unincorporated
AptosAptos is a census-designated place in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The population was 6,220 at the 2010 census.Aptos is an unincorporated area of Santa Cruz county, consisting of several small communities...
and approximately 10 mi (16 km) northeast of
Santa CruzSanta Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
. The quake was named for the nearby
Loma PrietaLoma Prieta is a Northern California mountain located in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The peak is located on private property, about west of Morgan Hill and within the boundaries of Santa Clara County...
Peak which lies 5 mi (8 km) to the northeast in
Santa Clara CountySanta Clara County is a county located at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010 it had a population of 1,781,642. The county seat is San Jose. The highly urbanized Santa Clara Valley within Santa Clara County is also known as Silicon Valley...
.
Injuries and fatalities
Fifty-seven of the deaths were directly caused by the earthquake; six further fatalities were ruled to have been caused indirectly. In addition, there were 3,757 injuries as a result of the earthquake—400 severely hurt. The highest number of fatalities, 42, occurred in the City of Oakland because of the failure of the
Cypress Street ViaductThe Cypress Street Viaduct, often referred to as the Cypress Structure, was a 1.6 mile long, raised two-tier, multi-lane freeway constructed of reinforced concrete that was originally part of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, California.It replaced an earlier single-deck viaduct constructed in the...
on the Nimitz Freeway (
Interstate 880Interstate 880 is an Interstate Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area connecting San Jose and Oakland, running parallel to the southeastern shore of San Francisco Bay...
), where a double-deck portion of the freeway collapsed, crushing the cars on the lower deck. One 50 feet (15 m) section of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge also collapsed, leading to the single fatality on the bridge. Three people were killed in the collapse of the Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz, and five people were killed in the collapse of a brick wall on Bluxome Street in San Francisco.
When the earthquake hit, the third game of the
1989 World Series†: Game 3 was originally slated for October 17 at 5:35 pm; however, it was postponed when an earthquake occurred at 5:04 pm.-Game 1:Saturday, October 14, 1989 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California...
baseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
championship was just beginning. Because of the unusual circumstance that both of the World Series teams (the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics) were based in the affected area, many people had left work early or were staying late to participate in after work group viewings and parties. As a consequence, the usually crowded freeways contained exceptionally light traffic. If traffic had been normal for a Tuesday
rush hourA rush hour or peak hour is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening, the times during when the most people commute...
, injuries and deaths could have been higher. The initial media reports failed to take into account the game's effect on traffic and initially estimated the death toll at 300, a number that was corrected to 63 in the days after the earthquake.
Damage
The earthquake caused severe damage in some very specific locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, most notably on unstable soil in
San FranciscoSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
and
OaklandOakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
. Oakland City Hall was evacuated after the earthquake until US$80M seismic retrofit and hazard abatement work was complete in 1995. Many other communities sustained severe damage throughout the region located in Alameda,
San MateoSan Mateo County is a county located in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. It covers most of the San Francisco Peninsula just south of San Francisco, and north of Santa Clara County. San Francisco International Airport is located at the northern end of the county, and...
,
Santa ClaraSanta Clara , founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852, is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. The city is the site of the eighth of 21 California missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asís, and was named after the mission. The Mission and Mission Gardens are located on the...
, San Benito,
Santa CruzSanta Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
, and
MontereyMonterey County is a county located on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California, its northwestern section forming the southern half of Monterey Bay. The northern half of the bay is in Santa Cruz County. As of 2010, the population was 415,057. The county seat and largest city is Salinas...
counties. Major property damage in San Francisco's Marina District 60 mi (97 km) from the epicenter resulted from
liquefaction of soilSoil liquefaction describes a phenomenon whereby a saturated soil substantially loses strength and stiffness in response to an applied stress, usually earthquake shaking or other sudden change in stress condition, causing it to behave like a liquid....
used to create waterfront land. Other effects included
sand volcanoA sand volcano or sand blow is a cone of sand formed by the ejection of sand onto a surface from a central point. The sand builds up as a cone with slopes at the sand's angle of repose. A crater is commonly seen at the summit...
es,
landslideA landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...
s, and ground ruptures. Some 12,000 homes and 2,600 businesses were damaged. In
Santa CruzSanta Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
, close to the epicenter, 40 buildings collapsed, killing six people. At the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, the Plunge building was significantly damaged. Liquefaction also caused damage in the Watsonville area. For example, sand volcanoes formed in a field near Pajaro as well as in a strawberry field. The Ford's department store in Watsonville experienced significant damage, including a crack down the front of the building. Many homes were dislodged if they were not bolted to their foundations. There were structural failures of twin bridges across Struve Slough near Watsonville. In Moss Landing, the liquefaction destroyed the causeway that carried the Moss Beach access road across tidewater basin, damaged the approach and abutment of the bridge linking Moss Landing spit to the mainland and cracked the paved road on Paul's Island. In the Old Town historical district of the city of Salinas, unreinforced masonry buildings were partially destroyed.
The quake caused an estimated $6 billion in property damage, becoming one of the most expensive natural disasters in U.S. history at the time. It was the largest earthquake to occur on the San Andreas Fault since the great
1906 San Francisco earthquakeThe San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
. Private donations poured in to aid relief efforts and on October 26,
President George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
signed a $3.45 billion earthquake relief package for California.
Marina District
Four people died in San Francisco's Marina District, four buildings were destroyed by fire, and seven buildings collapsed. Another 63 damaged structures were judged too dangerous to live in. Among the four deaths, one family lost their infant son who choked on dust while trapped for an hour inside their collapsed apartment.
The Marina district was built on
filled landA landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
made of a mixture of sand, dirt, rubble, waste, and other materials containing a high percentage of
groundwaterGroundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...
. Some of the fill was rubble discarded after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake but most was sand and debris laid down in preparation for the
1915 Panama-Pacific International ExpositionThe Panama-Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California between February 20 and December 4 in 1915. Its ostensible purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely seen in the city as an opportunity to showcase its recovery...
, a celebration of San Francisco's ability to rebound after its terrible catastrophe in 1906. After the Exposition, apartment buildings were erected on the filled land. In the 1989 earthquake, the water-saturated unconsolidated mud and sand suffered liquefaction, and the earthquake's vertical shock waves rippled the ground more severely.
At the intersection of Beach and Divisadero Streets in San Francisco, a
natural gasNatural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
main rupture caused a major
structure fireA structure fire is a fire involving the structural components of various residential buildings ranging from single-family detached homes and townhouses to apartments and tower blocks, or various commercial buildings ranging from offices to shopping malls...
. The fire department selected bystanders to help run fire hoses from a distance because the nearby hydrant system failed. Water from the bay was pumped by a
fireboatA fireboat is a specialized watercraft and with pumps and nozzles designed for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. The first fireboats, dating to the late 18th century, were tugboats, retrofitted with firefighting equipment....
,
PhoenixPhoenix is a fireboat owned by California and operated by the city of San Francisco in the San Francisco Bay since 1955. Phoenix is known for helping to save Marina District buildings from further destruction by fire following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Her worthy assistance resulted in a...
, to engines on the shore and used to douse the burning buildings. The apartment structures that collapsed were older buildings that included ground floor garages, which engineers refer to as a
soft story buildingA Soft story building is a multi-story building in which one or more floors have windows, wide doors, large unobstructed commercial spaces, or other openings in places where a shear wall would normally be required for stability as a matter of earthquake engineering design...
.
Santa Cruz and Monterey counties
In Santa Cruz, the Pacific Garden Mall was severely damaged, with falling debris killing three people, half of the six earthquake deaths in the Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. Some 31 buildings were damaged enough to warrant demolition, seven of which had been listed in the Santa Cruz Historic Building Survey. The four oldest had been built in 1894; the five oldest had withstood the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Immediately, a number of civilians began to work to attempt to free victims from the rubble of Ford's Department Store and the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company—both buildings had collapsed inward on customers and employees alike. Two police officers who crawled through voids in the debris found one victim alive and another dead inside the coffee house. Santa Cruz beach lifeguards assisted in moving the victims. Police dogs were brought in to help locate further victims. A woman was found dead inside Ford's. The civilians who had been initially helpful soon were viewed by police and fire officials as a hindrance to operations, with frantic coworkers and friends of a coffee house employee who was thought trapped under the rubble continuing their efforts in the dark. Police arrested those who refused to stop searching; this became a political issue in the coming days. The body of a young woman coffee worker was found under a collapsed wall late the next day.
During the first few days following the quake, electric power was out to most Santa Cruz county subscribers and some areas had no water. Limited phone service remained online, providing a crucial link to rescue workers. Widespread search operations were organized to find possible victims within fallen structures. As many as six teams of dogs and their handlers were at work identifying the large number of damaged buildings that held no victims.
The quake claimed one life in
WatsonvilleWatsonville is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The population was 51,199 according to the 2010 census.Located on the central coast of California, the economy centers predominantly around the farming industry. It is known for growing strawberries, apples, lettuce and a host...
; a driver who collided with panicked horses after they escaped their collapsed corral. In other Santa Cruz and Monterey county locations such as
HollisterHollister is a city in and the county seat of San Benito County, California, United States. The population was 34,928 at the 2010 census. Hollister is primarily an agricultural town.-History:...
,
Boulder CreekBoulder Creek is a census-designated place in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The population was 4,923 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Boulder Creek is located at ....
and
Moss LandingMoss Landing is a census-designated place in Monterey County, California, United States. Moss Landing is located on the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad north-northeast of Monterey, at an elevation of 10 feet . As of the 2010 census, the CDP population was 204, down from 300 at the 2000...
, a number of structures were damaged, with some knocked off of their foundations. Many residents slept outside their homes out of concern for further damage from aftershocks, of which there were 51 with magnitudes higher than 3.0 in the following 24 hours, and 16 more the second day. The earthquake damaged several historic buildings in the Old Town district of
SalinasSalinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census...
, and some were later demolished.
San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge
The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge suffered relatively minor damage, as a 76 by 50 ft (23.2 by 15.2 m) section of the upper deck on the eastern cantilever side crashed onto the deck below. The quake caused the Oakland side of the bridge to shift 7 in (18 cm) to the east, and caused the bolts of one section to shear off, sending the 250 short tons (226.8 MT) section of roadbed crashing down like a trapdoor. When that part of the bridge collapsed one car drove into the hole, resulting in the death of the driver. Traffic on both decks came to a halt, blocked by the section of roadbed. Police began unsnarling the traffic jam, telling drivers to turn their cars around and drive back the way they had come. Eastbound drivers stuck on the lower deck between the collapse and
Yerba Buena IslandYerba Buena Island sits in the San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland, California. The Yerba Buena Tunnel runs through its center and connects the western and eastern spans of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. It has had several other names over the decades: Sea Bird Island, Wood...
were routed up to the upper deck and westward back to San Francisco. A miscommunication made by emergency workers at Yerba Buena Island routed some of the drivers the wrong way; they were directed to the upper deck where they drove eastward toward the collapse site. One of these drivers did not see the open gap in time; the car plunged over the edge and smashed onto the collapsed roadbed. The driver died and the passenger was seriously injured. Caltrans removed and replaced the collapsed section, and re-opened the bridge on November 18.
Oakland and Interstate 880/Cypress Viaduct
The worst disaster of the earthquake was the collapse of the two-level
Cypress Street ViaductThe Cypress Street Viaduct, often referred to as the Cypress Structure, was a 1.6 mile long, raised two-tier, multi-lane freeway constructed of reinforced concrete that was originally part of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, California.It replaced an earlier single-deck viaduct constructed in the...
of
Interstate 880Interstate 880 is an Interstate Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area connecting San Jose and Oakland, running parallel to the southeastern shore of San Francisco Bay...
in
West OaklandWest Oakland is a neighborhood situated in the northwestern corner of Oakland, California along the waterfront near the Port of Oakland and San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge. It lies at an elevation of 13 feet .-History:...
. The failure of a 1.25 miles (2 km) section of the viaduct, also known as the "Cypress Structure" and the "Cypress Freeway", killed 42 and injured many more.
Built in the late 1950s, the Cypress Street Viaduct, a stretch of Interstate 880, was a double-deck freeway section made of nonductile
reinforced concreteReinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
that was constructed above and astride Cypress Street in Oakland. Roughly half of the land the Cypress Viaduct was built on was filled
marshIn geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
land, and half was somewhat more stable
alluviumAlluvium is loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments, eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water in some form in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel...
. Because of new highway structure design guidelines—the requirement of ductile construction elements—instituted following the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, a limited degree of earthquake reinforcement was retrofitted to the Cypress Viaduct in 1977. The added elements were longitudinal restraints at transverse expansion joints in the box girder spans, but no studies were made of possible failure modes specific to the Cypress Viaduct. When the earthquake hit, the shaking was amplified on the former marshland, and soil liquefaction occurred.
During the earthquake, the freeway buckled and twisted to its limits before the support columns failed and sent the upper deck crashing to the lower deck. In an instant, 41 people were crushed to death in their cars. Cars on the upper deck were tossed around violently, some of them flipped sideways and some of them were left dangling at the edge of the highway. Nearby residents and factory workers came to the rescue, climbing onto the wreckage with ladders and forklifts and pulling trapped people out of their mangled cars from under a four-foot gap in some sections. Some 60 members of Oakland's Public Works Agency left the nearby city yard and joined rescue efforts. Employees from Pacific Pipe (a now-shuttered factory adjoining the freeway) drove heavy lift equipment to the scene and started using it to raise sections of fallen freeway enough to allow further rescue. Hard-hatted factory workers continued their volunteer operation without stopping night and day until October 21, 1989, when they were forced to pause as U.S. President George H. W. Bush and California Governor
George DeukmejianCourken George Deukmejian, Jr. born June 6, 1928) is an Armenian American politician from California who as a Republican served as the 35th Governor of California and as California Attorney General .-Early life:...
viewed the damage. The stubborn efforts of the rescue workers were rewarded just after dawn on October 21 when survivor Buck Helm was freed from the wreckage, having spent 90 hours trapped in his crushed car under the rubble. Dubbed "Lucky Buck" by the local radio, Helm lived for another 29 days on
life supportLife support, in medicine is a broad term that applies to any therapy used to sustain a patient's life while they are critically ill or injured. There are many therapies and techniques that may be used by clinicians to achieve the goal of sustaining life...
, but finally succumbed to respiratory failure at the age of 57.
Rebuilding the freeway took 11 years. In the meantime, traffic was detoured through nearby
Interstate 980Interstate 980 is a short Interstate Highway spur entirely within Oakland, California, connecting Interstate 580 and State Route 24 to Interstate 880 near Downtown Oakland. I-980 passes the Oakland Convention Center and near the famous Jack London Square. I-980 is commonly considered the dividing...
, causing increased congestion. Instead of rebuilding Interstate 880 over the same ground, Caltrans rerouted the freeway further west around the outskirts of West Oakland to provide better access to the
Port of OaklandThe Port of Oakland was the first major port on the Pacific Coast of the United States to build terminals for container ships. It is now the fifth busiest container port in the United States, behind Long Beach, Los Angeles, Newark, and Savannah...
and the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, and to meet community desires to keep the freeway from cutting through residential areas. Street-level Mandela Parkway now occupies the previous roadbed of the Cypress Structure.
1989 World Series
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was one of the few times that the onset of an earthquake of such magnitude has occurred during a live network television broadcast, and as a result, the first moments of the earthquake were seen around the world as it happened. The Series was being televised that year by U.S. network ABC. At the moment the quake struck, sportscaster
Tim McCarverJames Timothy "Tim" McCarver is an American former Major League Baseball catcher, and a current sportscaster in residence for Fox Sports.-Playing career:...
was narrating taped highlights of the previous Series game. Viewers saw the video signal begin to break up, heard McCarver repeat a sentence as the shaking distracted him, and heard McCarver's colleague
Al MichaelsAlan Richard "Al" Michaels is an American television sportscaster. Now employed by NBC Sports after nearly three decades with ABC Sports, Michaels is one of the most prominent members of his profession...
exclaim, "I'll tell you what—we're having an earth—." At that moment, the feed from Candlestick Park was lost. The network put up a green ABC Sports graphic as the audio was switched to a telephone link. Michaels cracked, "Well folks, that's the greatest open in the history of television, bar none!" accompanied by the cheering of fans who had no idea of the devastation elsewhere. ABC then switched to their "rain delay" backup program,
RoseanneRoseanne is an American sitcom broadcast on ABC from October 18, 1988 to May 20, 1997. Starring Roseanne Barr, the show revolved around the Conners, an Illinois working class family...
, while attempting to restore electricity to their remote equipment. With anchorman
Ted KoppelEdward James "Ted" Koppel is an English-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline from the program's inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005. After leaving Nightline, Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel before resigning in 2008...
in position in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, ABC News began continuous coverage of the quake about 5:40 p.m. (Al Michaels, in the process, became a de facto on site reporter for ABC), at the same time as CBS News. NBC News also began continuous coverage, with
Tom BrokawThomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...
, about an hour later.
KGO-TVKGO-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, based in San Francisco, California...
, a local affiliate of ABC, later won a
Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
for their news coverage, as did radio station
KCBS (AM)KCBS is an all-news radio station in San Francisco, California, that is a key West Coast flagship radio station of the CBS Radio Network and Westwood One. Its transmitter is located in Novato, California. KCBS currently has studios on Battery Street, where it shares the location with co-owned KPIX...
.
In
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, ABC owned and operated station
KABCKABC-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, licensed to Los Angeles, California. KABC-TV's studios are located in Glendale, California...
chose not to air the network feed. It aired its own coverage, anchored by Mark Coogan. However, some network footage was incorporated into its coverage.
Fewer than half of the more than 62,000 fans had reached their seats by the time of the quake, and the load on the structure of the stadium was lower than maximum. There had also been a seismic-strengthening project previously completed on the upper deck concrete windscreen. Fans reported that the stadium moved in an articulated manner as the earthquake wave passed through it, that the light standards swayed by many feet, and that the concrete upper deck windscreen moved in a wave-like manner over a distance of several feet. Electrical power to the stadium was lost, forcing the game to be postponed. The series did not resume for 10 days.
After the shaking subsided, many of the players on both teams immediately searched for and gathered family and friends from the stands before evacuating the facility.
Because of the importance of the World Series as a national sporting event, many members of local, regional and national broadcast media were in attendance and would later broadcast their observations of the aftermath of the earthquake to viewers around the world. In addition to broadcast news, many photojournalists were present, and a collection of their photos was released as the book
Fifteen Seconds: The Great California Earthquake of 1989, which was published soon after the quake to raise money for the victims.
Goodyear blimp
The
Goodyear blimpThe Goodyear Blimp is the collective name for a fleet of blimps operated by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for advertising purposes and for use as a television camera platform for aerial views of sporting events...
was aloft above the ballpark to provide aerial coverage of the
World SeriesThe World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
. Blimp pilot John Crayton reported that he felt four bumps during the quake.
Effects on transportation
Immediately following the earthquake, San Francisco Bay Area airports closed to conduct visual inspection and damage assessment procedures.
San Jose International AirportNorman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport is a city-owned public-use airport serving the city of San Jose in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is named for San Jose native Norman Yoshio Mineta, who was Transportation Secretary in the Cabinet of George W...
,
Oakland International AirportOakland International Airport , also known as Metropolitan Oakland International Airport, is a public airport located south of the central business district of Oakland, a city in Alameda County, California, United States...
and
San Francisco International AirportSan Francisco International Airport is a major international airport located south of downtown San Francisco, California, United States, near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno in unincorporated San Mateo County. It is often referred to as SFO...
all opened the next morning. Massive cracks in Oakland's runway and taxiway reduced the usable length to two-thirds normal, and damage to the dike required quick remediation to avoid flooding the runway with water from the bay. Oakland Airport repair costs were assessed at $30 million.
San Francisco Municipal RailwayThe San Francisco Municipal Railway is the public transit system for the city and county of San Francisco, California. In 2006, it served with an operating budget of about $700 million...
(Muni) lost all power to electric transit systems when the quake hit, but otherwise suffered little damage and no injuries to operators or riders.
Cable carsThe San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually operated cable car system, in the US sense of a tramway whose cars are pulled along by cables embedded in the street. It is an icon of San Francisco, California...
and electric trains and buses were stalled in place—half of Muni's transport capability was lost for 12 hours. Muni relied on diesel buses to continue abbreviated service until electric power was restored later that night, and electric units could be inspected and readied for service on the morning of October 18. After 78 hours, 96 percent of Muni services were back in operation, including the cable cars.
The earthquake changed the Bay Area's automobile transportation landscape. Not only did the quake force seismic retrofitting of all San Francisco Bay Area bridges, it caused enough damage that some parts of the region's freeway system had to be demolished. Damage to the region's transportation system was estimated at $1.8 billion.
- San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, Interstate 80: The Bay Bridge was repaired and reopened to traffic in a month. However, the earthquake made it clear that the Bay Bridge, like many of California's toll bridges, required major repair or replacement for long-term viability and safety. Construction on a replacement for the eastern span began on January 29, 2002. The project is expected to be completed by 2013.
- Cypress Street Viaduct/Nimitz Freeway, Interstate 880
Interstate 880 is an Interstate Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area connecting San Jose and Oakland, running parallel to the southeastern shore of San Francisco Bay...
: The double-decked Cypress Street Viaduct, Interstate 880 was demolished soon after the earthquake, and was not rebuilt until July 1997. The rebuilt highway was a single- rather than double-deck structure, and was re-routed around the outskirts of West Oakland, rather than bisecting it, as the Cypress Street Viaduct had done. The former route of the Cypress Street Viaduct was reopened as the ground-level Mandela Parkway.
- Embarcadero Freeway, California State Route 480
State Route 480 was a state highway in San Francisco, California, United States, consisting of the elevated double-decker Embarcadero Freeway , the partly elevated Doyle Drive approach to the Golden Gate Bridge and the proposed and unbuilt section in between. The unbuilt section from Doyle Drive to...
: Earthquake damage forced the closure and demolition of San Francisco's incomplete and controversial Embarcadero Freeway (State Route 480). This removal opened up San Francisco's Embarcadero area to new development. The elevated structure, which ran along San Francisco's waterfront, was later demolished and replaced with a ground-level boulevard.
- Southern Freeway, Interstate 280
Interstate 280 is a 57-mile long north–south Interstate Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It connects San Jose and San Francisco, running along just to the west of the cities of San Francisco Peninsula for most of its route.I-280 from its northern end at King...
: Seismic damage also forced the long-term closure of Interstate 280 in San Francisco (north of US 101), another concrete freeway which had never been completed to its originally planned route. The uncompleted northernmost stub of I-280 was demolished during August–October 1995 while one connecting ramp between northbound I-280 and southbound US 101 was opened in December 1995. The full I-280 project was completed in late 1997.
- Central Freeway
The Central Freeway is a roughly one-mile elevated freeway in San Francisco, California, United States, connecting the Bayshore/James Lick Freeway with the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Most of the freeway is part of US 101, which exits at Mission Street on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge...
, U.S. Route 101: San Francisco's Central Freeway (part of US 101 and a key link to the Bay Bridge flyover) was another concrete double-deck structure which faced demolition because of safety concerns. Originally terminating at Franklin Street and Golden Gate Avenue near San Francisco's Civic Center, the section past Fell Street was demolished first, then later the section between Mission and Fell Streets. The section from Mission Street to Market Street was rebuilt (completed September 2005) as a single-deck elevated freeway, touching down at Market Street and feeding into Octavia BoulevardOctavia Boulevard is a major street in San Francisco, California that replaced the Hayes Valley portion of the damaged two-level Central Freeway. Once a portion of Octavia Street alongside shadowy, fenced-off land beneath the elevated U.S...
, a ground-level urban parkway carrying traffic to and from the major San Francisco traffic arterials that the old elevated freeway used to connect to directly, including Fell and Oak Streets (which serve the city's western neighborhoods) and Franklin and Gough Streets (which serve northern neighborhoods and the Golden Gate Bridge).
- State Route 17: The mountain highway was closed for about one month because of a landslide
A landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...
. The route crosses the San Andreas Fault in the Santa Cruz Mountains, near the earthquake's epicenter.
- State Route 1
State Route 1 , more often called Highway 1, is a state highway that runs along much of the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. It is famous for running along some of the most beautiful coastlines in the world, leading to its designation as an All-American Road.Highway 1 does not run...
: In Watsonville, the Struve Slough Bridge collapsed, with concrete/steel support columns punching through the bridge deck like toothpicks. The highway was closed for several months until it could be demolished and rebuilt. Another section of Highway 1 through Monterey suffered damage and had to be rebuilt as well. Additionally, the bridge carrying Highway 1 over the Salinas RiverThe Salinas River is the largest river of the central coast of California, running and draining 4,160 square miles. It flows north-northwest and drains the Salinas Valley that slices through the Coast Range south from Monterey Bay...
near Fort OrdFort Ord was a U.S. Army post on Monterey Bay in California. It was established in 1917 as a maneuver area and field artillery target range and was closed in September 1994. Fort Ord was one of the most attractive locations of any U.S. Army post, because of its proximity to the beach and California...
was damaged and subsequently rebuilt.
- Bay Area Rapid Transit
Bay Area Rapid Transit is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The heavy-rail public transit and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in the East Bay and suburbs in northern San Mateo County. BART operates five lines on of track with 44 stations in four counties...
: The BART rail system, which hauled commuters between the East Bay and San Francisco via the Transbay TubeThe Transbay Tube is the part of BART which runs under San Francisco Bay in California. The tube is 3.6 miles long; including approaches from the nearest stations , it totals 6 miles...
, was virtually undamaged and only closed for post-earthquake inspection. With the Bay Bridge closed because of its damage, the Transbay Tube became the quickest way into San Francisco via Oakland for a month, and ridership increased in the three work weeks following the earthquake, going from 218,000 riders per average weekday to more than 330,000 post-quake, a 50 percent increase. BART instituted round-the-clock train service until December 3 when they returned to their normal schedule.
- Transbay Ferries
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
: Ferry service between San Francisco and Oakland, which had ended decades before, was revived during the month-long closure of the Bay Bridge as an alternative to the overcrowded BART. A ferry terminal was put together in AlamedaAlameda is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located on Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island, and is adjacent to Oakland in the San Francisco Bay. The Bay Farm Island portion of the city is adjacent to the Oakland International Airport. At the 2010 census, the city had a...
, and the Army Corps of Engineers dredged a suitable ferry dock at the Berkeley MarinaThe Berkeley Marina is the westernmost portion of the city of Berkeley, California, located west of the Eastshore Freeway at the foot of University Avenue on San Francisco Bay...
. Additionally, the demolition of the quake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway led to the Ferry Building Terminal renovation, increasing the efficiency of ferry service to the peninsula. The passenger-only service proved popular and continues to expand its service.
Data on magnetic disturbances
The Loma Prieta earthquake was preceded by disturbances in the background
magnetic fieldA magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
strength as measured by a sensor placed in
Corralitos, CaliforniaCorralitos is a census-designated place in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The population was 2,326 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Corralitos is located at ....
, about 4.5 miles (7 km) from the epicenter. From October 5, a substantial increase in background noise was measured in the frequency range 0.01–10 Hz. The measurement instrument was a single-axis search-coil
magnetometerA magnetometer is a measuring instrument used to measure the strength or direction of a magnetic field either produced in the laboratory or existing in nature...
that was being used for low frequency research by Antony C. Fraser-Smith of
Stanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. Signals in the range .01–.5 Hz rose to exceptionally high levels about three hours before the earthquake. Though this pattern gave scientists new ideas for research into potential
precursorsPrecursors are characteristic wave patterns caused by dispersion of an impulse's frequency components as it propagates through a medium. Classically, precursors precede the main signal, although in certain situations they may also follow it...
to earthquakes, more recent studies have cast doubt on the connection, attributing the observations before the Loma Prieta quake to either an unrelated and more geographically widespread magnetic disturbance or to sensor malfunctions.
In media
- The events in the Full House
Full House is an American sitcom television series. Set in San Francisco, the show chronicles widowed father Danny Tanner, who, after the death of his wife, enlists his best friend Joey Gladstone and his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis to help raise his three daughters, D.J., Stephanie, and...
episode, "Aftershocks" (December 8, 1989), took place following the Loma Prieta earthquake; it centered on Stephanie Tanner having a hard time telling her father Danny about how she fears another aftershock might happen and kill him, since he is a widowed single father.
- After The Shock (1990), a made-for-TV movie with stories of rescue after the disaster.
- Miracle on Interstate 880 (1993), a TV movie fictionalization and re-enactment of events at the collapsed Cypress Structure.
- Journeyman
Journeyman is a 2007 American science fiction television drama created by Kevin Falls for 20th Century Fox Television which aired on the NBC television network. It starred Kevin McKidd as Dan Vasser, a San Francisco reporter who involuntarily travels through time...
(2007), TV show on NBC in which the main character travels back in time to save a person who died during the earthquake. Occurs in third episode, "Game Three."
- Midnight Caller
Midnight Caller is a dramatic NBC television series created by Richard DiLello, which ran from 1988 to 1991. It was one of the first television series to address the dramatic possibilities of the then-growing phenomenon of talk radio...
(1990), TV show set in San Francisco in the aftermath of the earthquake.
- Medium
Medium is an American television drama series that premiered on NBC on January 3, 2005, and ended on CBS on January 21, 2011. Themed on supernatural gifts, its lead character, Allison DuBois , is a medium employed as a consultant for the Phoenix, Arizona district attorney's office...
(2005), TV show on NBC in which a character uses her coincidental presence in Oakland during the earthquake as an opportunity to fake her own death and disappear. Occurs in the episode "Sweet Dreams".
- Fringe
Fringe is an American science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The series follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security...
(2008), TV show on FOX in which a character's parents were killed in the Oakland Bay Bridge collapse, while a quantum observer was watching her and her parents. Occurs in the episode "August." In a later episode ("Fringe: Amber 31422", November 4, 2010), the alternate Walter Bishop refers to October 17, 1989, as the first time he used his amber-based protocol to heal breaches between the two universes.
- The Grateful Dead performed the Rodney Crowell
Rodney Crowell is a Grammy Award-winning musician, known primarily for his work as a singer and songwriter in country music....
song "California Earthquake" at their concert in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 20, 1989, then again three nights later in Charlotte, North Carolina—the only times the band ever performed the song. On December 6, 1989, the band played an earthquake benefit concert at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena.
- The SimCity 2000
SimCity 2000 is a simulation/city building video game and the second installment in the SimCity series. SimCity 2000 was first released by Maxis in 1994 for computers running Apple Macintosh Operating System...
expansion pack, Scenarios Vol. I: Great Disasters included a scenario based on this earthquake.
See also
- 1994 Northridge earthquake
- Earthquake engineering
Earthquake engineering is the scientific field concerned with protecting society, the natural and the man-made environment from earthquakes by limiting the seismic risk to socio-economically acceptable levels...
- Earthquakes in California
Earthquakes in California are common occurrences as the state is located on the San Andreas Fault, which cuts across California and forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific and the North American Plate. There are many thousands of small earthquakes per year, most of them are so small that...
- List of earthquakes in the United States
Seismology